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ANCIENT KOSALA AND MAGADHA
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text; Plato's Republic could do nicely with religious or philosophical axioms, but such technical details imply working methods in actual use. When the treasury is in great difficulties (A 5.2) and a capital levy has to be made, the merchants in precious articles should pay as much as 50 per cent, cloth and lower metals 40 per cent, grain traders and wagon-train organizers 30 per cent. and so on. In later Indian history, this would simply be done by force, as often as it pleased the absolute monarch. But Kautalya warns that this levy is not to be made twice, and that it should be on a voluntary basis as it were, by the chief collector of revenues begging from the people. He suggests seeding the populace with pseudo-volunteers who come forward enthusiastically to contribute apparently large amounts. Yet there is no question of civil rights, fair play, or from each according to his means-let the goldsmiths have all their property confiscated, the richest travelling merchants be quietly murdered as if by a robber or enemy, and the loot piled into the state treasury. It would be inconceivable for a brahmin theorist to recommend as does the Arthaśāstra, confiscation of temple treasures (by the corresponding adhyakşa, naturally !), setting up of new cults, faking of sudden miracles, all to collect money from the credulous for the king, not for the brahmin. Here we have support from Patañjali who reports : Mauryair hiranyārthibhir arcāḥ prakalpitāḥ (on Pāṇ. 5. 3. 99), that the Mauryans had established cults for the sake of money. That the Mauryan treasury had actually been in difficulties again and again is shown by progressive debasement of the coinage, which in the later Taxila hoard (dated to about the reign of Asoka by a mint-condition coin of Diodotos) contains from 60 to 75 per cent copper, as against the 25 per cent recommended by the Arthaśāstra (A2.12). Even when Kautalya speaks against Bharadvāja (A 5.6) to the effect that the minister shouldn't make himself king if the ruler dies suddenly and a good chance offers, he is being practical on moral grounds. Bharadvāja's advice was followed when the Sunga army commander Pusyamitra ended the Mauryan dynasty; again, when naslå thain:
the Kāņvāyana brahmin minister Vāsudeva succeeded the last Sunga. It may be a mere coincidence that
one or the Sunga and Kāņvāyana are both Bharadvāja gotras.
After all, what is the main purpose of this treatise on political economy? The conquest and guarding of the whole earth16 by one king. The work begins with those words, þrthivyām läbhe pălane ca. From the seventh book onwards, this purpose becomes the main aim, and the thirteenth deals with the most difficult task of straightforward aggression, the reduction of fortified places and cities. But even though no treachery down to murder and poisoning is too foul to get rid of the opposing king, the countryside is to be preserved from all damage, as Megasthenes noted to the astonishment and joy of writers
18. The world outside India doesn't count for imperial purposes : deša prthivi, tasyām himaval samudrāntaram udicinam yojana-sahasra-pariminam tiryak cakravarti-ksetram (A 9.1).
